Trouble with usb JetFlash drive

Unfortunately what I know about making any alterations to the inner workings of Linux can be written on the back of a postage stamp , with a burnt stick , so please have patention with me .
I'm in the midst of changing hard drives and having difficulties getting an icon for a usb flash drive on the screen on the new hard drive , it woks fine on the old hard drive , I would like to transfer my files on to the larger and newer hard drive ( both drives are rack mounted ) , now to the problem .
After installing Mandrake 10 onto the new hard drive , I forgot I had left the JetFlash drive in the usb socket , and after booting up there was no sign of the flash drive on the desk top anywhere . After another install ( without the flash drive in place ) . So on booting up the new install with the flash drive in the usb port it told me "a new device has been found do you want to configure it " , on hitting OK it tell's me that various sectors are over lapping , on deleting the over overlapping sectors all partitions on the hard drive were deleted ( the flash drive thought it was a 20 gig hard drive ) . So another install , and again no icon
The question now is how do I get an icon on the screen so the files can be transfered . I can put an icon on the screen and put in /mount /mnt ..... then on clicking on the icon it says " mount can not find " /mount/mnt/..... "
Hoping you can help
With many thanks for any help
wombat

try using harddrake to reformat it (or repartition)
if that dont work then boot from a Window$ boot disk (floppy) and run FDISK on it (i dunno if that will work) or just plug it into a Window$ XP computer and see if it works.

i have the same problem with my flash drive at startup but i just click cancel and everthing works fine.

:idea: Sudden thought:
do you have the hotplug service started?
i think that u might need it, i dunno if u do though

Thanks weedman
will give that a go later to night , and will keep you posted , again many thanks .
regards wombat

Hi Weedman
Ran hotplug through Midnight commander and got a screen full of script and it did mention a fair bit about usb mas storage dev: Also reformatted the flash drive on a windows machine using the cd rom that came with it drive , but still not comming up on the screen using the new hadrdrive , funny thing is it works OK on the old one ? May be thats the problem something wrong with the flash drive ? ? ? I may get a new one ( not the same brand ) and try it .
Again many thanks
Regards wombat

Found the trouble the pen / flash drive was damaged when I left it the usb port while installing the Linux system onto the new hard drive , whatever has happened to it it looks like it can't be fixed . It's been formatted and reformatted but I can't get it back to the original state when it was new .
Many thanks for the help .
Regards
Wombat